“I’m not a speaker by any means. I did not expect to have to speak on tonight, but God has his way," Jen told the audience.

“As we all know, today we lost a legend. Ooh, Jesus, we lost a legend who was a good friend of mine: Prince, who was dear to all of us. Every single one of us."

Jen's vocals were matched by her castmate (Image: Andres M/YouTube)

She also revealed that Prince had been in touch with her a little while ago and had invited the whole cast of the Broadway show to meet him.

"He called me while we were here and asked me to come out, you know, to this event because he was writing his book. And he told me, 'You can bring your cast members along.'

"All these amazing people. Aren't they awesome? We were honoured to be in his presence one last time and we got to have that moment," she said.

"So tonight, if you guys don't mind, we'd like you all to join us in honoring Prince. He said his music will live on and he will live through his music so we want to keep him alive today with this song. I might not get through this, but I will try. Help us out. Can we all do this together?" As fans rose to their feet, Hudson shouted, "I know you all know the song!"

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But it seems that Jen had trouble remembering the words herself, as she carried a notecard with the lyrics.

It didn’t take her long to feel the emotion of the track, stripping off her cerise jacket to sing the chorus once more with the audience, as she let her powerful vocals take over.

"Can we just stop the music and we all sing it together one more time?" she asked. “I want to hear you!"